The Youth of the Poet and the Painter. Letter XIV. to XXVIII.

From: The Dial, Vol. IV, No. IV. (April 1844)
Author:
Published: James Munroe and Company 1844 Boston

MY DEAR SON,
  Now you have left college, let us think no more about it. I doubt not that you did right, if the place was so very disagreeable to you. I never, as you know, have meant to force you; and if you had not left so suddenly without consulting me on the subject, it is very likely f should not have felt so much about it. It was the uncertainty connected with your movements that troubled me, and led me to write you, I dare say, letters that my sober moments might not sanction. However, let us say nothing more about college. I hope you will pursue your studies, especially the modern languages,—these are indispensable, as your father used to say, to a merchant or professional man. If you now return, and Fanny says every time a stage drives by, “There comes Neddy,” you can easily carry out your studies by the aid of good masters here, even if you entered a store at once, as I trust you will. Though I had once supposed you might be a lawyer, I should still not object to your becoming a merchant, and in some conversation I had with Mr. Penny the other day, be said, he thought he could find you a place immediately. I should not expect, that if you entered the counting-room on your return, you would find it beneficial to devote your whole time to mercantile occupations, but only a part of each day; the remainder you could devote to exercise, on foot, or in the saddle. I have just purchased a saddle-horse, who has a very easy gait, and, as you remember, there are many fine drives about Doughnut. Your old room has been refitted, the coal-grate taken out, and a large, convenient wood fire-place made of it. I have put in a red carpet, and made a red sofa-spread; and put in some curtains of the same color; I think it will have a pleasant effect in winter. We have had a new book-case made, and put in the place of the old one, with drawers for papers and curiosities, underneath the shelves. Your books preserve their old order. I feel confident we shall pass a pleasant winter. It is getting late now and cold, and it will be necessary for you to provide yourself with some thicker stockings perhaps; I send with this, a bundle also containing the rest of your flannel waiscoats. You must pay particular attention to guarding your throat when you are abroad, as you may bring on another attack of the bronchitis, which troubled you so much two winters ago. The season, so far, has been healthy with us, and your sister is in good condition. I shall be glad to know when you are coming, and always delighted to get a line from you, when you feel like writing. Fanny sends her best love.

MY DEAR SIR,
  In a conversation I had the pleasure to have with Mrs. Ashford, some days since, she mentioned accidentally, I think, the fact that you had left college, and were about to pursue some branch of occupation unconnected with the liberal professions. I therefore took the liberty of mentioning to Mrs. Ashford, that if your inclination tended to entering upon the duties of a merchant, I should be much gratified to exert myself personally in your behalf. I have made several inquiries, and discovered a situation in the Messrs. Swippins’ Wholesale Grocery Concern. This, it occurs to me, would generally be considered an eligible situation.

  It is within my power to speak the more confidently upon this subject, because I formerly carried on a business of this description myself. At first, a person who had not been used to business confinement, would perhaps find his time a little too much taken up with the affairs of the Concern, but I think, from a little statement which I will make, of what would be required the first two years, you will not deem it too severe a privation, when it is considered how great gain will result from these two years. It is my opinion, that the benefits would more than outweigh the sacrifice, even if it was heavier.

  You would, during the first year, be required to sweep the store before breakfast, make the fires, and at noon, secure an early meal, by which means you would be present while the clerks and partners were at their dinners, and in the evening remain till a little after dark, and close the store. During the morning, you would either be engaged in the clerk’s room copying letters, or employed in the store-room, or at some vessel checking the cargo; yet this latter duty would subject you to no confinement, as, on the contrary, it is universally performed in the open air. Copying letters might frequently occupy you for six hours during the day, but as it would be the means of education, this brief time would pass agreeably.

  Emanuel Swippins, Esq., the head of the firm, is the father of the Misses Swippins, friends I think .of your family, and to my knowledge very affable, cheerful young people. By forming an acquaintance with Mr. Swippins, you would secure an introduction to the best mercantile houses in Doughnut. Mr. Swippins’s principal partner is George Potlid, Esq., and the two other partners, Messrs. Muffins and Tweezy; they are all of them cultivated, agreeable, fine-spirited persons, in whose society you would find great knowledge of business, and those true refinements which adorn and polish human existence. I have written without Mrs. Ashford’s knowledge, for which pardon me.

  I have been glad to receive some verses from you, in your late letters. Continue sending them, for I discover a new melody, and a completer finish in each new poem, and the last I receive seems always the best. I notice what you have said of Mathews Gray, in one of your letters, but I think you would like him more than you suspect, on a personal acquaintance. He has the power of attaching others, through the medium of his intellect, no less than his heart, and I believe he has never made a friendship by which his friend has not been benefited. I notice you have the general impression of his character; like others, you have set him down for a critic. But he only criticizes, to assist himself and others in getting a better knowledge of the person,—never, for the mere purpose of delivering an opinion. Gray takes more interest in all those he hears of, or meets with, than any one I know, and has a real pleasure in living in another, which his faculty enables him fully to sustain. No one can pau a few days in his society, without becoming impressed with the extent and variety of his learning, and the depth of his inquiries; he is with this, exempt from pedantry either in book-studies, or affection; he never presses himself into the service of another, but with childlike enthusiasm opens his heart and mind, when the sympathy is demanded.

  I have at length concluded that I will go abroad, and pass a year or two, not that I have exhausted the wells of thought in my own country, but because I am in a condition to go, and must take the time as I find it. My health has not been as good as usual this autumn, and I am advised to spend the next winter on the continent of Europe. I shall regret leaving you, yet must trust to the imperfect medium of letters, to keep our knowledge of one another fresh, and will do my part in sending you whatever I find of any importance, as far as I can speak of it with any satisfaction to myself. In the mean time, if it would be agreeable to you, I will desire Gray to send a word occasionally from his retreat.

  Foreign travel has become so much a matter of course with our American youth, that it seems now no more than spending a month at the Falls, or a winter at the South. I regard it however of more importance to the artist, than the general man of letters, if we learn whatever our own collections can teach, before we cross the ocean. There is a certain period, to which we each of us reach, when we have satisfied our desires on one side, and ask for a new life, to give our thoughts n new direction, and I seem to have arrived there. I am now in need of better pictures, than I can see about me here, and after so much of this new country, I long to fly and compare it with the antique. I aim to raise my present standard of beauty by higher models, and to scrutinize myself in the mirrors of better artists. I feel that if my taste merits some regard for its delicacy, it aspires to scale the lofty summits of purer art; I am fearful of degenerating into a half-formed amateur, if I do not seek after the absolutely best productions which remain. My opportunities may have been as good as I could secure in America, but I know that Florence or Rome contains ten times more than I can find here, if I spent a lifetime in the search. How can I learn anything of Michael, Raphael, Titian, Claude, or any of the masters, in this country!

  And yet I fear to go. Perhaps when I look upon the really sublime works, I shall turn away in despair, and resolve never again to aspire to be an artist. I have seen with wonder our second-rate artists flocking to Italy, and after copying a few pictures, return, still carrying out their petty imitations; I had thought they would have been shamed into silence, by communing with what was so far above them. I know their excuse, that they had a certain department in which they could labor, and could content themselves, if they did a little well, if they only limited themselves, and bound their endeavors within the circle of least diameter.

  I feel it will be a crisis in my life, when I sit before those magnificent works, which have held the worship of the world captive for centuries; I shall enter the gallery with trembling limbs. Yet I long for the trial. It is what I have looked forward to so many years, that, of late, I think it has worn so much on my spirits as to impair my health. It might have been a happiness, if I could have rushed forward as the mass of painters, and, upon finishing some tiny bijou, considered myself the best of artists; yet, if a happiness, it is a low pleasure, and I feel it would be more noble to sacrifice every lesser work, and not to call myself anything before fully proving my powers. What a canker in the breast it is to aspire so continually, yet accomplish nothing; and how many must have died of the unfulfilled desire to create. Yet, we are ready to accept the pangs of disappointment, sooner than the vacancy of those who never wish to become masters. I can conceive of no position so admirable, as that of the truly successful painter. His glory comes in his lifetime, and follows upon the production of his works. The first painter of an age stands among his fellows a monument so lofty, that the crown never darkens, but an eternal sun brightens the figure.

  I shall not hurry from city to city, but pass half a year at Rome, and as much time at Florence. With me, travelling abroad never shines under the light of a pleasure excursion. There are minor reasons, why I am desirous to go; the change, the society, the civilization, will have their relative importance. It is in the main a stern trial of my right to be an artist, a period of study and starvation. I feel I must go alone, and work out the problem by myself; I must face the beauty alone, and seek no aid to enable me to gain a footing. It is my intention to copy, for some time, from the best pictures, and after I am thoroughly imbued with the best thoughts of others, try my own hand. I know this subjects me to the danger of becoming an imitator. I may adopt too much of the style which pleases me best, and when I paint my own picture, not recognise the copyist. It is necessary I should be strong enough to scrutinize my productions with the critic’s eye, and however much others may differ from me, I can only satisfy myself, as a critic of my own works. I have vibrated so many years between being an artist, and no artist, that I must cast the die myself. Perhaps I have not taken the wisest path; it is that only which can satisfy me.

  I have written of late on the character and pursuits of Edward. Your announcement that you are resolved to do what you have long meditated, and to spend a year in Europe, leads me to you. I hear the decision, on some accounts, with regret, and especially as it is your purpose to tread alone the fertile fields of transatlantic civilization. You resemble Edward more than you think; and your solitary pilgrimage will not differ, essentially, from his retreat to Lovedale. It is what I might expect, from the difference in your characters, that you should seek the broad land of art, while he lies beneath the oaks of the forest. While I think Edward has chosen the right spot to make the foundation of his education for a poet, it is my duty to say that I would not have you leave America just yet. You feel as keenly sensitive to disappointment, as a painter, as he does as a poet; but he retreats to nature alone, leaving the verses of his brother rhymesters, while you will enter the hotbed of art, and not only warm, but, perchance, scorch yourself in the sun. As a painter, you are liable to more difficulties, in succeeding, than he contends with; and there is this difference in your positions, that Edward contends with himself, more than with others, while you owe your defeats to an unappeasable ambition, not to excel others, it is true, but to stand as high. Your character, as a man, is more formed than his, while your development as an artist remains much less certain. The total beauty of a picture strikes us with far greater force than the aggregate of a poem, and it occurs to me you are more alive to your deficiencies in your art than he is in his. Added to this, you will excuse me if I say I believe you have too exacting a view of what you are bound to effect as an artist, at present, and are unwilling to take the benefits you should of right claim as student. You demand an absolute perfection now, not indeed in whole works, but in tendencies whereby you may elect for yourself to be an artist. Neither will you allow us to give our opinion of your merit, but accept only your own; and yet, in the case of another, you are ready to admit that he cannot really judge how good are his works.

  I no more doubt that you were born a painter, than that Edward was a poet; it grieves me to find how you adhere to your old notions, of going abroad and making a trial, to decide for life, in the choice of your pursuit. The pursuit was chosen for you by nature, before your birth, like every other man’s. I would have you believe my 1tatement, for I am in the true position to see that your power, u an artist, cannot be justly questioned. Therefore resolve, having nearly completed the preliminary studies for the world in general, and which no one regrets mastering, to devote yourself exclusively to your own affairs. Take your palette and canvass, and station yourself among the fields and groves, and draw the spirit direct from the springs of life. This is what Claude did, what Salvator did, what every artist will do, if circumstances allow. Yours do allow it. You are mortgaged to no other pursuit, your worldly means are ample, your health, I doubt not, improvable, the moment you settle this question with yourself. Fancy yourself a merchant, sitting at your desk dealing in bills of exchange, and ciphering up learned accounts from an elegant red lined check-book; fancy yourself circling in the old round of gain and opinion, with dry and dusty money-venders; you, who have given ten years’ of life, each moment a diamond, to prepare for the artist’s studio; think how tedious, after the first novelty had wore off; think of those long years of repetition, in the same round; feel, what the retrospect of ten years spent in such an arena would produce, what anguish, what horror, what spurns of remorse; a life without creation, an existence without action. Then, I say, take your palette and pencil, and retreat to the woods, and there paint ten yean for yourself, forgetting there ever lived another painter. With what joy you would trace a flexile landscape on your glowing canvas; how would your eye1 live in the rich greens of the foliage, the golden dyes of the clouds, and the soft, hazy tints of the aerial distance; some shepherd driving home his flock in this peaceful sunset, would be the poetical figure of your repose. Neither would the heavy, beating storm coming wild and ominous across the blue floor of the sea, smile upon you the less; between the points of the two islands yonder, the waves would leap along the horizon’s line, a herd of wild animals, while these stately rocks in your foreground, with one pine keenly verdant hanging over them, stand like simple wisdom; between your distance and your feet, the shadows would shift and play, as every wind sent a cloud over, and the surface of the sea spring into life under the magnetic burden, and a shower or diamonds flit and glisten like fire-flies on the mirror. What a new day every morning handed you, to enbalm it in magic colors, and the cottage hearth would scatter its ruby finish on the undried sketches, and make you taste the sweets of your glazing to-morrow. After ten such years, you would enter Italy, and not doff your hat to Claude or Poussin.

  It will grieve me not to see you before you leave for Europe; and yet I fear, I could be of little service to you, if you remained in America. I feel my barrenness of thought and feeling more sensibly every day. I am convinced more than ever, these are my trial yean, when I must go forth alone into the wilderness, and see if I have any strength. Yet I am sure of some things, and have nearly swept some corners of my heart, and trimmed the lamps in my cave. At Jut, they have consented to leave me in peace; I am to be no more troubled by my Uncle Richard, and even my mother has said, she will never more mention college. I will send you some further leaves of my journal, as a parting gift.

  Come to me, cold wind of the late autumn, and rest thy vexed spirit in my breast; I am cold as thou, yet love the sun, and the deep warmth of rosy summer. I am not like thee, for I cannot wander over mountain, and moor, nor rattle the cottage-blinds, nor sing merrily in the locks of the dry grass; I am still and motionless. O give me thy hurrying pinions, and we will weep like the grey gulls over the blue sea, and rock the little vessels, as they ride at anchor near the coves of the shore, as we fly from country to country. Then perhaps we shall come to some little island, where the roses bloom, and the sward is soft, and the clouds golden, and there we will sink into a sleep so quiet, that life can never more awake us.

MORNING.

Merrily on, merrily on,
Singing a song to the golden light,
We wander the arms of the air upon,
And mock the dull earth in our hurrying flight;
Over the hill where rises the moon,
Over the brook as it lispeth a tune,
Over the cottage with ivy around,
Where the flowers spring soft from the warm deep ground;
Under the shower of the sunny day,
Under the twilight’s banners grey,
Through star and through cloud,
Through rain and through snow,
Through desert and crowd,
Through gladness and woe,
We pass with the dance of the lightning’s beam,
We vanish like figures in memory’s dream;

  To-day perhaps was the last warm day of autumn, and the sky was clear as a note of music. I lay upon a spot of emerald grass, under the polished screen of oak-leaves, which the frost has left to glisten over the dark mirror of the stream. A sunny golden-rod moved stately in the whisper of a little wind, and the violet aster, starry and complete, softly swung in the southern breath. In this little cottage, built by the trees and flowers, I summoned a creature with dark hair and gentle smiles, willing to abide through all the long years of time. All through the spring and summer we should need no fire, except the sun, and in autumn and winter, we could shelter ourselves in a wigwam. Those long winter evenings, I felt I should write many poems, and sing them to the maiden. The snows around could not chill the hospitable flame that burnt within, for it would be lit on the altar of affection. No fear, no fatigue should enter this little dwelling, which these sweet thoughts built, on the edge of the river. The maiden with her pencil, would write the music of my verse into graceful figures. Life would pass so sweet and tranquil, never intruded upon by a passion or a care, and all we coveted should be time, and even then be satisfied to leave this pleasant fireside, when the soft voice of death called us away together.

  I have seen many such pictures, yet how impossible to believe I shall realize one of them. They are truly pictures. If I were only a painter, and could give them color and form, how happy a child I should be. Those maiden’s deep eyes; if I could only paint them, her clear forehead and sweet trembling mouth. I see her sitting in my skiff, gazing vacantly into the sky, wrapped in a shawl filled with bright colors, her long hair streaming like moss about her temples and cheeks, how much repose in her calm face, and as I look at her, she catches my eye fixed on her trance, and smiles like the taste of sweet wine. That wandering, dreamy, moonlit smile, that chases the shadow from her countenance, like the afternoon sunlight of a partly clouded day, how much better, than full broad laughter. She sits now on a little point yonder, where the wind blows, and still the fringes of the bright drapery circle about her brows, though· she looks to me chill and shivering. The flowers and the grass wave above, as she bends and rests her head upon the rock, while far across the river crosses the sunlight. Yet in the cool breeze she again looks up, and her crescent mouth curls in a strange sunny mirth, which makes the place warm. For this maiden of my dreams renders the landscape warm, whether the day is cold or not; she has such deep joy in her heart. Sometimes we wander over the sandbank, and sit on a fair hill, where birches and oaks wave their branches, and a little brook runs tinkling in silver murmurs at our feet, and echoes the softly sighing wind. There we read the poems of the masters of song, or hear the bees sing their late busy songs. The light is bright and free and cheering, and all the sight swims in an elastic sea of pleasure. We wend our way back to our cottage at nightfall; it is to sit by the hearth, and hear the legends written by forgetfulness on the brain of an old witch who lives near, and has come down to warm her skinny hands at the fire,—a harmless witch in a white cap and a faded gown. I see the long lashes of the maiden’s eyes, and there is a little child, who has come to sit by the fire for a few moments, the grandchild of the old witch. The fragrant fern curls in the flame, and sends its thick smoke high into the air. Doubtless the people will think there are gipsies in the wood.

  To-day there comes one of those dull rains, which makes me press my hands upon my heart, and say I am a-weary. I dart swiftly through the forest, but my limbs are cold; the air is chill, laden with mist, through which I can see nothing distinct, and I fall over the old decayed branches lying around, and the prickly chesnut burrs stain my hands with blood. Everything seems dreamlike, but it is the dream of despair, not of hope. I feel when I go back, I shall wish to write some verses, try them, and fail. Why shall I try, why shall I fail? Is it not like my life always,—always a trial and a failure. And to be disappointed in such radiant forms, when they have ever worn the same character with myself outwardly, and to find them indeed only flesh and blood. It is reason I should wander alone for many years. I look into the windows of the little cottages, where people stand around bright fires, even more earnestly to-day, than I did on that other shivering day; for when the rain patters fast and glitters in long drops on my hair, when my hands and feet ache with cold, and I seem to have lived centuries in a sudden hour, ah! I long to sit by you, cheerful fire, and smile with you who smile there. I cannot come yet, perhaps I shall sometime. I have too many of these grey waves rolling over the bed of my existence, and dashing their blinding spray over the tall bare rocks which hem it in. I wish the wind would cease blowing for an hour, and leave me to the silence of utter repose, even if I have no fire on the hearth; I wish the waters of this deep lake could be drawn up by the sun, and then fall back in tears, or dry forever, and let me see the shells and weeds at the bottom, for more than mother of pearl may be there. Life is like a room, surrounded with mirrors, in each of which I am reflected back, alas I always in my own figure; many persons obscure their images by throwing dust around, but I think it is better we should be reflected in fair proportions. I walked far to-day in the forest, solitary in heart, and heard the yellow leaves sing death-songs, and sink heavy with the weeping day on the moist ground. How many years swept through me in that walk; and I found a poor dove bleeding, with broken wing, where I should have thought no sportsman would have ventured, until I remembered that no glen is sacred from the tread of the murderer, I took the wounded sailor of the air home, and warmed it, and its wound was healed. The broken wing, as I thought, was not so badly hurt; it could fly. It looked up at me inquiringly, after I fed it, and then flew through the window that I had opened. I saw to-day the sun hid far behind the mist. Why should he struggle so pale, when he shines so like a king on other days; yet it is frolic to him, for he has no care to take, but has his course set. Nature says sometimes to me, I will set your course, if you will let me. O! I am too proud and careless of my course, I reply, and of everything’s course; I must first respect and feel for others, then I can safely tread my own way. Yet I generally feel as if others had little to expect from me, they are all so much happier than I am. I seem as happy to them, perhaps, as they to me; I am a hollow trunk, with some ivy trailing over it, but full of worms, yet I look green and fresh. They tell me they are happy. They smile as I do, but I look in my sister’s eyes, and see such a still, deep grief lying there, so sweet and mild, yet the crystal which the years of concealed sorrow has formed. Because it is so sweet and mild, they call her a happy woman; the world seems always to mistake this dress they wear, for themselves. I suppose the ruder people take a coarse kind of enjoyment in existence, which would be so far less preferable to me, than the wild pangs of Hell! The contented seem like cows and oxen, chewing grass, though they believe it is fine abrosia; they drain the muddy water of the morass, and call it nectar.

  The frost last night pinched the vines, and the maples have thrown their scarlet cloaks about them. They sparkle in such joyful colors, because they are to sleep long weeks, and wake in a new dress. The dust had formed its webs on them, and the insects pierced their thin folds. Now, they can be tossed off, as the snake sheds its skin. I wish I could have my autumn come now, with them; I should be content to sleep as many thousand centuries as they do seconds, and wake in a fresh robe. I must stand still to see them change, but remain as I am. Our season is so long, so many years. We live it all in a moment, and the rest is dreary expectation. I hardly know whether to quit my sweet Lovedale, and pass my winter in the city, to be teased by the dull people, or not. I am nearly resolved to go, for I feel anxious to be with mother, if I can do anything besides weary her. There are some books to read, and some pictures to see. I can do some work, like the earth, under the snows of winter, when she prepares for the spring; at least I think I can, although I may fall into one of those terrible anguishes, as I did last year, when my head burnt as if it was on fire, and my eyes refused to rend, and every sound in the street hammered upon my ear as it would burst it in. I sometimes fear, in the fury of that bitter wind, I may lose all knowledge of myself suddenly, and never again recall the earth, or be led to end the struggle by some glittering point.

  I address you, dear friend, on the eve of my departure, to thank you for the many beautiful additions you have made to my life, within the last few months, and to regret my absorption in other thoughts, which has scarcely allowed me to turn to you. But my heart, like the star of the north, never changes its place, and I trust may guide your every sorrow there. I have never offered you consolation; that stuff was made for other moulded men. I have offered you only myself, with what I have of life or experience. I feel our unlikeness, and had we not been forced apart, but have dwelt together, I think we should have been more aid to each other. But do not regard this early separation as any place where two roads part; our path runs in the same direction, even if we travel by different conveyances. I am glad to be gone, for myself, but lament for you; I know not how I shall bear the long absence, but I trust you will write me often all you know and do. I rejoice to hear you will spend the winter at home. In meeting Gray, which I contemplate as certain, you will, I trust, find satisfaction. So noble, so deep, so hearty a man cannot fail to be set in your life as a rare jewel, which, if you do not wear, you can gaze upon with abundant delight.

  I leave my books and pictures at your disposal. I cannot say much for my present collection of pictures. In my large portfolio you will find the sketches I made in our journey, that you mention in one of your letters, and my later drawings.

  I have now been a month in the city. Your absence is a loss which I find difficult to bear. I walk alone through the crowded streets, while life flits around me, colder than the winter’s snows. The men that pass, they are the shadows only of my memory. It seems as if last autumn I had strayed for a time in heaven, for that sweet river was an Elysium, compared with this noisy monotony. What clay-cold figures, tragic always, but never sunny, formed in leaden moulds, the counterpart of each other. I dream no dreams here, but sit in patience, longing for spring’s green robe to wrap around me. Will it come, will the gay foliage burst on the bare branches of my existence, with flowers at my feet, starring the emerald floor. I seek something picturesque, when the winds drive the eddying snow about the roofs of the houses, but all is too hard, and my imagination sinks under the definite outline& So do the persons I meet in society impress me,—statues, without one soft and graceful line to delight. Yet I think I shall find presently, among these polished persons, some vision of my inward heart, to render its lonely throbs into reality. I pray to them to come and Jet me judge them; they approach,—the one is not here. My letters I fear, from the city, will be lea to you than those I sent from Lovedale; yet they contained the least port of what I would have said. Is it not so always with letters, and do they not mock you, as they do me? My journal I keep, but almost fear to send any part, it is so trifling and shallow. Yet I know how deeply you value the city, and the life here, and will like to know what I do under these heaps of snow. I look forward eagerly for the letters you will send, laden with sweets from every region of art, and sometimes wish, for my own sake, though not for yours, I were wandering with you. I am too dull and cold to wander over the world with any companion.

  The common places of travel I shall leave to the guidebooks, and write of what is nearest my own heart, my progress as a painter. I saw good pictures in London, and more at the Louvre in Paris, but still hastened on, for my goal lay afar in the field of sunny Italy. I have been in Florence a week, yet seen the labors of centuries, and Italy is to me the bright land of art I fancied. But I have not taken the brush in my hand; I enter the galleries, silent, afraid to express my admiration, how much more to copy. I am too weak to imitate such master pieces; they confound me by their excellence, as if they who produced them were the inhabitants of another world, spirits from above, descended to elevate us who toil on these low plains. I wish Gray would send a strong, manly epistle, and wake me out of this trance, into which I expected to fall; I would, you felt like writing, but I know, dear friend, how sorely life weighs upon you at home. I think, each time the post comes, to open a letter from the other side of the water, which may push me into action; the packet arrives, it contains some excellent letters from my mother about body and clothes, a few plain words of common sense from my father as to expenses on the road, and a page of nonsense from that arch coquette, my sister, who every season breaks a new score of hearts. How much letters become, when we really are separated from those who write them; they each contain a fate.

  Your only letter I received at Paris; it was so short and hurried, that I still think I must have missed part, or the packet with which it came, may have been opened, and the sheet containing extracts from your journal, perhaps a poem, abstracted. It merely informed me you were in the city, but gave no notion of what you do, what people you see, or how you pass your time in the cold breezes. I pray that I may not lose sight of your motions, and that my next packet will contain an abundance of good news. Write fully if you have discovered anything in literature or art this winter, for I am in great need of discoveries; I want the spectacle of another’s courage to set me forward on my journey.

  My present experiences shed a brighter light on the put than I had expected, and what seemed to me of little value, when it was acted, by my new knowledge has become inestimable. I find that all the masters had their practical days of failure, when performance seemed impossibility, and life was hung with dark clouds. I gaze on the first, stiff sketches of painters, whose fame has 1ince stretched the length of continents; art, too, saluted them in the same unconcerned manner that it does me to-day. I cling to their failures, and feel cheered; I admire their steady progress, and hope for myself; I almost laugh at what I deemed defeat, yet have not thus far dared to lake the next step. Very true is it, that they failed in the beginning, but, when they were fairly on the road, they 1trode forward with the magnificent steps of conquerors, in the proud assurance of victory. They were willing to pine and cower for a day, while the long yean were reserved for noble achievements; they sat patient through their school-days, and then ru1hed like Arabian courses over the wide, bleak sands of existence, strewing grace over the flowerless road, as unconscious as the ever radiant Aurora. The banner no more trailed in the low dust of rivalry and disappointment, but each true master shook his glittering spear aloft, or planted it in its lofty might, over the bodies of a host of slain.

  The lives of the great masters used to interest us greatly many years ago, and I cannot add anything of interest to your present acquaintance with them; the facts can be had everywhere. I observe in all their histories the same struggle with themselves, and with their circumstances. Genius has never exempted any of his sons from the common trials of humanity, and has generally added some heavier sorrow to counterbalance the possession of the creative power. We read their struggles, as if they came of right to them; we are not willing to condole with them, for have they not that which renders life illustrious? They carve the monuments which outlast the fame of them for whom they were erected.

  If these great works illustrate my past life, how much more do they serve as prophets of my future. They almost say, leave off, presumptuous stranger, for how can you pretend to a seat among princes. At the same time, they lead me on, when they declare they were the productions of men like myself, fallible and prone to ill success. These things have been accomplished by the energies of my race, and shall I, a son of the same Jove, hot dare to mount as high, and scale the clouds with them. I shall dare, shall I not? I shall succeed, must I not?

  O Italy, thou land of light and Jove, glowing in the sun’s warm rays, will thy blue skies hang over me, like a funeral pall, or shall thy sweet winds joyfully sing my triumph! Descend upon me, beautiful spirit that hauntest these green pines, and windest through the golden chesnuts, descend and tip my pencil with thy sacred fire. Burn in the veins of a wanderer from a northern land, abounding in frost and snow, and melt the ice which years of disappointed hope have centred in him. And ye, masters, whose glory hos become the splendid inheritance of an else poverty-stricken land, be merciful to a pilgrim to your rosy shrines.

  Send me too your prayer, my Edward.

MY DEAR HOPE,
  I breathe more free; I have left the city, and am in the mountains. The other part of my life I spent on the plain, except our walks in the summer vacations. I am among the mountains, and feel almost as I once thought I should. I needed new forms; I looked upward, there were those vast clouds glowing in the red of morning, or the sapphire of sunset, but they fled, fled away, and I could not detain them. But the mountains remain. I see the sun linger, then fade calmly behind them; they fold the ,valleys in shadow, they veil the placid bosom of the deep lakes; I seek my room satisfied, for the morning will present them to my view, new, and yet old, and permanent. Is it not fine, this permanence, a strong reality, not in indefinable distance, but at our side. They enfold the landscape, a band of guardian friends, firm, self-sufficing, stern, yet affectionate. I have put a verse or two about them in my note book.

Stand, thus forever stand, 1evereat heights,
With the green veils clothing your simple forms,
How are ye permanent alone, while we,
Who soar above you, like the clouds flit by,
And have no firm horizon, no fixed stars.
Me penetrate with your unvexed repose,
For I would build, as ye do, not on sand,
Bot from the central heat, whence all things spring.
I come among you as a traveller,
And am received within your sheltering arms,
Nor do ye vanish u the morning mists,
But stand and soar sublime in majesty.
I drink from the clear springs that in you rise,
Upon your tops I see the landscape grow,
Shall I be lofty, and breathe the upper air.

  My lines will be cold on warm Italian plains. I find some pleasant persons, for the people borrow the color of the hills. They are robust and sweet-hearted, and I think sometimes here could I pass my life.

  I cannot come; I am fastened to the mountains. It is life for me here; it would be death to go. The burning hope of years finds here a spirit to fan it into stronger flame. She is beautiful,—yes,—it is a woman. As I gaze, I ask, does not such beauty stand to mock all other facts, for how wan, how shrivelled, are the people at her side. A woman, why, Hope, when I think of it, I had nearly sold myself to the evil one, by suspecting existence was such a meagre affair, that could afford me nothing to admire. An ocean of life seems hemmed in within the little band that girds her luxuriant waist. So free, spirited, so wild, and so harmonious, a creature who never had a care, a heavy thought, a weary hour, who was born to expand like a rosebud, to feel only the sunbeams, to clasp only the purest breeze. Where she stands, the place rises into luxury; at the old gate of her home, she glows like a rosy statue. It is natural to her to be innocent, to be happy. I have forgotten that I was alive, as I used to be. I look as I walk through the woods, and she meets me; in the clouds I see her soft smile; her deep, suffused eye penetrates the evening grey; and my last thought, is the joy that one so beautiful, so innocent, can live. I shall not weary you with writing how black and glossy is her hair, how smooth her cheek, how ample her queen-like stature. If I admire her for any thing, it is for being good, something I hated in others. This is because goodness is the element of her being, not factitious, and worn as a covering.

  O, my dear Hope, I am so happy in this provision which life has made to ease me of the dull burden, not of care, but of self-interest, that I feared was fastened on my shoulder. Before, it seemed so dreamlike and uncertain. It was this shadow of self, which lowered on my endeavors.

  I am glad I have a friend; I rejoice that I can pour the sparkling waters of delight freely forth for another to taste. Do not expect from me the philosophy of love, and rest content in knowing that my heart is no longer a void. This will give you satisfaction, for I know the happiness of your friend is more to you than your own. I ask, when I meet this lovely person, if I mistake not in claiming so much for her, so much beauty, and sweetness, and greatness. Are these lover’s errors, does my imagination sport with my understanding, and do I no longer perceive, and compare accurately? Even if a self-deceiver, should I not rest content in such deceit.

  It is this I have longed for so many years, to have be-fore me a beauty that excels the brilliant colors of imagination, and adds a secret force to my apprehension. She,—Frances, is the only daughter of a worthy lawyer in the mountain village, and her power of adorning a sheltered home is moulded into perfect security. I will not say I made rapidly her acquaintance, but I feel that a mysterious sympathy has drawn us together, has united us, from· the first. I am now familiar with the lesser traits of her singular beauty, her excellent feeling for the gayer aspects of life, her generous vivacity, her deep modesty, and that love of existence which feeds upon the every-day without becoming gross.

  In meeting with this person, I naturally perceive that this is a crisis in my hitherto silent organization. Because the supply of a wish, indulged in with but little hope of satisfaction, shows me I must not delay, but open at once this blissful gate leading out of darkness. I must rush forward, not stand knocking long at this first entrance into day. Presumptuous youth! yes, it is for me to be presumptuous; if born in the north, I am in pulse the native of the south. The blood circulates with electric speed through my veins. If nature has hitherto stood so cold, and vast, a firm monitor, an unapproachable beauty, masked, yet desired, may I not resolve to accept the first flower that blooms for me to cherish. I read in her eloquent eye the steadfast faith that serenely rests in my heart, and know it is impossible that she is not wholly mine. I cannot explain to you how surprising an influence this event must exert on all my plans, and how I have considered, and seen it to be possible to adopt the system, the views of my race. Before, I did not know that truly I was a man, nor was I indissolubly connected with the dream of youth. I have been a solitary, a vague, if an independent person; I have shadowed out great designs impossible to fulfil; I have been stimulated by motives which had their origin in poverty, and the frozen centre of self. How has the ring of necessity been sown with flowers: fragrant and blooming. The voyage of existence shall not end in uncertainty without touching at fortunate isles.

  I am strong; I am encouraged. Too long I followed a solitary path, leading anywhere rather than to consistent happiness. I now perceive the relation of many sayings of friends and advisers, to reality, that I vainly imagined before were unconnected with truth. I am not afraid, is opening the deepest chambers of my being, that you cannot comprehend what I mean, even if my expressions need perfecting. I see her pass in the street, from the window. That glance on the ground, that open brow, that proud and elegant figure. I must go, I must join her.

MY DEAR GRAY,
  I should have addressed you many times, had I been able to unfold the result of impressions, that much conversation with art must have stamped in my mind. Many months of study must elapse before I see clearly, and in the mean time, I would offer a comment upon your letter, which advised me to remain at home, and draw from the unfailing springs of nature. In this advice, if I may call the devotion of your heart and mind to my welfare, by such a common place term, I see the tendency that you possess, to base every pursuit upon nature. It may be true, that situated as the artist is in America, the child of a new period, emphatically so, in the history of the present age, be should apply himself to the development of a new side of art, and this view of the matter will apply to poetry. The American poet must not direct his verse by any model, if he would seek to be the prophet of his age, but must create his public, his style, his success. England or Italy cannot furnish him with material.

  If I allow the possibility of the original, to the poet, why not equally to the painter. Is not painting a kindred art, and does it not maintain itself by the power of the painter, free from trammel, independent and self-sustained. I confess, I cannot see how the comparison holds good between the poet and the painter, when we carry it to this length. I think painting more the property of art, than poetry. Painting, in many respects, ranks with the best prose, and when it rises into the region of poetry, never loses its connection with earth. It is not so nearly related to what we call the infinite, or what we better speak of as the un-named; poetry is the religion, painting is the religion carried out in fact, of art, and both are equally important, and intrinsically beautiful.

  The great composer almost stands alone, for what do the mass of his auditors bear away, except a vague, if pleasing recollection; they know nothing intimately; they do not possess even a part of his design, as a property. Music seems to me a very exclusive art, and painting enjoys a more open and finished existence. I cannot help feeling, how happy is the choice of the painter. He is not allowed to fail; he must be admirable, or nothing. Mediocre verses, by dint of good print, fair paper, and ingenious reviewing, may attract considerable praise, but the expensive frame only leads us to condemn the picture more, if it be not good.

  I am led to these remarks by the sight of celebrated pictures, and feel the immense superiority of the great artist to his host of unknown imitators. No artist attracts me more than Claude. In his works you will not find sublimity, daring, not even splendor. But how has he enchanted nature, by the magical violet of his skies, his soft and warm greens, his skill evermore combining, evermore repeating, if you will, in such attractive reproduction. It is like the face of the old world, as we call it; the morning never rises with the same cloud, and the faintest dawn has a certain force, unlike all others. This architecture of Claude’s, is the best pictorial architecture. Pure, but not coldly unimpassioned, classical without stiffness, romantic without rudeness, the Corinthian of landscape. His festivals, his shepherdess, driving a few goats, the only figure of a simple twilight-scene, where the few lines of the landscape are edged with a few soft outlines of foliage, these sunsets over the waters gilding these easy yet possibly active ships, seem as if any day one could copy at least, so plain a style, so quiet a manner, yet who has ever copied Claude. And how does art bud and bloom in our dear land, so dear to the wanderer; when I see the stars and stripes, since I left you, my heart beats as if they were the face of a friend.

MY DEAR HOPE,
  I shall not resign the idea, that it is the best time now, to lay the broad foundation for a school of American art. The dawn of this republic, whose career promises to be as long, as it is already brilliant, should excite new emotions in the breasts of the artists. Sacred is imitation, sacred are the lines written by men, but let us love the day that is, and believe in an ever-present creative spirit. I shall be told that our history is too recent for song, its figures too active for outline, but surely should our wildness be embalmed before it has evaporated. I walk through the forest, or glide upon the river; I enjoy the day, where neither Greece nor Rome passed theirs; let us picture for the next age, what actually is, and not leave the Niebuhrs of that day, to dispute about our history. We are not too busy, we are not too idle, to devote a few years of time, to sanctify the early annals of a nation, of a people.

  You will all present your graduating tickets, received from the elder schools of art, and maintain that by following near to nature, and attempting to set forth facts just at hand, we must end in nothing. It might not be well to call them historical pictures, the broad wilderness, the Indian council-fire, the combats between the old and the new, between the regular and the militia, liberty and independence, the craving for novelty, and the like, but did not Raphael portray with matchless fidelity the faith and fancy of his day, and was Hogarth less the to his. Art must come, you will say, in good time, and woe to him, who endeavors to drag it forth at the unpropitious moment; I think what is called “Art,” has only a factitious existence. I sometimes fancy I have the true American spirit. There are patriots, not a few, those who expound the laws abound, and we possess social philosophers by the million. I am a lover of my country, in itself; I desire to see the grand moments, of so aspiring a youth, fitly sung, fitly pictured. The old, the timeworn, the past, not too closely, O learned student, cram us so young with these.

  Let England, let the world, say what bad things it will of America, let Americans vilify the national tastes, I see no country, where merit sooner finds its true reward. We do not neglect poets, painters, scholars; we are proud to excess, if so be any man has a gift from God, whereby he can well discern this beauty that is in the world. No people will so little suffer that any of their reputation shall be lost. It is an old and a tough story, that we are a nation only allied to money-making. Some poet does not receive his expected patronage, for writing some useless sonnets, and therefore writes some more, to abuse his customers for their neglect.

  The Americans seem cold to art; it is their trick, and I love them for it. In appearance, they defer to matter; in troth, they do esteem beauty and virtue. They hue not time, to say that they would say, about a thousand matters, which presently we shall hear of. The wood must be felled, cabins built, corn planted, crops garnered, and then perhaps a few words about life, and its completion. And how does it all concern you? I must have you feel like an American, among the ruins of those empires, and see American forms, and model American architectures. For after all my dear Hope, it is at home, that you must build the palace of your good fame, and in your native granite. From foreign lands come many things, which adorn and sweeten existence, but only from the soil of our country, spring the fair trees under whose wide boughs, the people are sheltered. Excuse me for writing of this so much to-day, but so often am I called to speak of anything rather than of patriotism, that I must unbosom. Write often to your friend,

  Like the soft steps of a girl, graceful and tender, so melteth the spring into the summer, and the blossoms on every tree deck gaily the landscape, and make the old woods to rejoice in their newborn caresses. It was a pleasant thing for me, that I came to see you wedded, seasons of buds and flowers, while, far on their frosty chariots, the dark, sere elders of your race sternly career. Ye have smiled, blessed days, ye have smiled tenderly, for I needed your genial caresses. Ye have said to the child of the south,—O child, among the mountains we will plant your path with roses, with violets, and the sweet offerings of the many-colored forest; thy days were full of tears, many and sad, but the sun has risen, and the world is fair.

  I have looked in those dark eyes, not to be disappointed. Ah I well did my Frances know, that my heart would have been rent asunder, as the atom of frost rends the iron, if but a cold word had fallen in the early summer of my love. This is a fearful world, says the moralist, but love casteth out fear. My dear Hope, forget those years of suffering, in which you suffered with me, for in some constitutions winter precedes spring.

  Even now I feel I needed one thing more to complete my happiness, for at my marriage you were not there. My mother came, and my sister, and my uncle, all looking as bright as possible, and mightily contented, and I quite took to the good people. We were married in Crayton, where I am living. Is it not remarkable, I am actually “keeping house,” as they call it. It is a kind of cottage, with low, sloping roof, deep piazza, far from the road, and an avenue of elms leads to it. Around, you see ample fields, and a garden in the rear. I grasp the shovel, and imagine myself throwing up the earth. Over the cottage a mighty elm expands its green pavilion, and there the orioles build; sometimes I see their fiery breasts glowing through the leaves. I have called my cottage by your name. I know it sounds a little English perhaps,—”Hope Cottage”; but where I live, is it not also where you do. I think you will like this nest. It is an imbowered place, rural enough, yet by no means rustic, tasteful, yet not sub-urban. It is true, that the inside of my little dwelling pleases me most. From the parlor where I now sit, with Frances by my side, I see the lofty range of mountains that encircles the valley, the lakes, the distant river, and many a roof of the husbandmen light in the beams of the sun; I see the calm, beautiful face of day.

  It is like him, you will say, not a word of his wife. My wife! should we not make a very low bow to the judiciary for permitting us to have wives. And yet one hears of divorces. It is beautifully quiet here, far off the road, and Frances sings in the evenings, when no other sound can be heard. I am sure you will like her singing, free and sweet, like herself. Are you not coming back to pass a day at my house? “Bravo, Mr. Landlord.”
Your friend,

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